Front Mission 4 Playtest

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Engross yourself in Square Enix's mech combat sim.

By Anoop Gantayat

You may typically associate Square Enix with fantasy-style RPGs. But one of the longest lasting and, in Japan at least, most loved series from the company is Front Mission, which involves strategy-based mech combat set in the future, on Earth. Front Mission 4, the first PS2 entry in the series, just arrived to anxious fans in Japan, and we picked up the game to see what the fuss is all about.

Front Mission 4 follows the story of two characters: Elsa and Darril. Elsa is a Wanzer (that's the special name Front Mission uses for its mechs) pilot based in France who with her battalion is assigned to investigate a surprise attack that occurs at a base in Germany (the attack is depicted in the game's realtime intro, viewable in the media section). Darril, meanwhile, is the head of a small force in the U.S.C. army and is stationed in South America. He's not particularly interested in his work, and his story begins when he and his two subordinates discover a couple of tons of gold while on patrol and decide to keep it for themselves.

How the fates of these two very different and very separated people cross is depicted throughout the course of Front Mission 4. You alternate between the two storylines, starting off with Elsa. The story isn't merely presented through non-interactive dialogue sequences. While in your base between battles, you can go to different areas of the base and speak to different characters. We've even found a couple of simple puzzles that required exploring.

Throughout the course of the story, you end up taking to battlefields in Wanzer mech units. The battles in Front Mission 4 are turn-based strategy. Your goal, at least for the early missions, is to destroy all enemies on the battle field before you loose all the forces on your side. The first few battles we fought involved up to four mechs on our side with multiple mechs, helicopters, tanks and gun turrets on the side of the enemy.

When its your turn, you move each mech in your group one at a time. Each mech can move a different amount of space and can attack with a different range depending on what weapons, armor and body parts have been equipped.

You have to balance movement with attacking, though. Mechs have AP points which are used at each turn for action you perform. The further you move, the more AP you use, leaving you with less AP for attacking. Moving far will usually leave the mech with enough AP only for a single attack while standing still and attacking will allow the mech to attack twice.

There's plenty of realism on offer with this game in terms of mech damage. Your mech doesn't have a single life meter. Each of its parts, including body, legs and left and right arms have their own life meter. A mech is knocked out of a battle only if its body is destroyed. Loose your legs and your movement becomes limited. Loose one of your arms and you loose whatever weapons or attack items were associated with that arm.

Mechs and pilots can be upgraded between battles. You can buy parts and weapons with money you've acquired and can also use skill points to upgrade your character with new skills and greater strength. You can even change the color of your mech and assign it a proper name, although these latter areas cost neither money nor skill points. Weapons and parts that you equip all have their own set of advantages and disadvantages, forcing you to give great thought to what exactly you're doing. Actual skills that you've acquired can be set only in limited quantities, forcing you to consider closely what skills you'd most like to use in a battle.

Backpacks pay a crucial role in the game. Backpacks, as the name may suggest, are worn on the back of mechs. Depending on the type of backpack, a mech gains the ability to hold a greater number of items, to call out supply drops and to call out an air strike targeting a certain area of the playfield. The most important backpack, though, is the repair backpack, which gives a character the ability to repair and recreate broken parts of ally mechs. If one of your mechs should loose a legs or guns, you'll probably want to use a mech equipped with a repair pack to repair these areas, one at a time.

This all makes for some engrossing strategy. The missions we've played through have offered up lots to deal with, ranging from oddly-shaped terrain to smart enemies. There's a sense of realism throughout all areas of the game, including battles which switch from day to night and show the effects of the change.

Be forewarned, though -- this game can be tough if you're a newcomer to turn-based strategy. If you're a fan, though, you'll be in heaven with Front Mission 4.

The typical Square Enix aesthetics are on offer with this game, including an instantly memorable soundtrack and pounding sound effects allowing you to feel every bullet strike. Visually, while battles, when viewed from far overhead during the planning phases, can be a bit tough on the eye due to poor image quality, the actual attack cinemas show off the game's excellent mech designs, animation and camera movement. These latter areas are put to even better use during the numerous real-time cinemas. There's an almost human quality to the mechs in Front Mission 4.

Importers beware. Story is heavy in this game, with dialogue and cut-scenes before and after each mission. Voiced dialogue is in English, but much of the background story is left to text, and it's all in Japanese. Those without the requisite skills should wait for the Square Enix English version, which we presume will come out some time in 2004.